i think he both rescued his candidacy and rescued the election. and quite honestly, the election to this point was kind of boring. it was boring because both candidates in different ways were making it boring. the president, and there have been reports, was kind of coasting through, thinking he had no real competition from mitt romney. and romney was out there basically, expressioning conservative platitudes without elaborating on them. we get to the debate and what mitt romney does is answer the two things i think most voters were looking for, why do you think that barack obama's presidency failed and what ways have he failed it. and what would you propose alternatives, and better than president obama does? >> he did both of those, went right at the obama record and something the president declined to talk about himself and went deep on his tax policy and his health policy, so he put some entirely new baseline for the election. >> paul: kim, there are a lot of republicans were willing to start writing off mitt romney if he didn't do welcome. i me